DCU, Goalie in Talks

[UPDATES at the bottom]

According to two sources close to the club, D.C. United is in negotiations with goalkeeper Louis Crayton, who has played for eight Swiss clubs over the last 11 years and made 36 Liberian national team appearances.

A deal "is not final yet," one source said.

United has been aggressively pursuing a goalie to compete with Zach Wells for the starting job. The club waived Peruvian Jose Carvallo last month. Rookie James Thorpe is the club's developmental goalie.

At Basel, Crayton, 30, has served as the back-up to captain Franco Costanzo (Argentina). Previously, he was the starter at Concordia Basel, a second division club loosely affiliated with FCB.

You're right. His nationality surprises me. I wasn't expecting that. Don't know anything about him, but if he can speak Spanish and shows a psycho personality inside the 6 (like a good goalie should - his own defenders should be afraid of him), then I'm fine with it. Either Zach will step up - which I think he is already - or we get an experienced keeper ready to step in and solidify.

Was he with the national team at the same time as Francis Doe? Was that our connection this guy walks up to Doe one day to ask about the league and Doe hooks himup with the national team? The front office watching Liberia games to keep track of Doe and liking what they see from him?

reading the comments from that youtube link, the basel fans seem to think he should be the starter.

Posted by: mizage | August 7, 2008 9:23 AM

Yes that is definitely encouraging. He had some pretty nice saves in those highlights too. Having said that, I expect him to be the type of goalie who has a lot of raw athletic ability but also very prone to mistakes. We'll see though ;)

Personally i was more impressed last night with "El Pando" Ramirez! He had bolivia seeing stars, and his distribution and defense was increbile!!! Him instead of simms would be awsome!! But he is pretty old at 30 already. But IMO and every guatemalan in the stadium, was the man of the match.

-He scored 4 goals with FC Zug 94 HOW?!?!
-I'm glad english is the official language of Liberia, so there is no language barrier
-He's been a backup for a loong time
-Maybe doe and crayton can keep their passports and papers safe between them also

I guess my only real question is, what is his pay going to be?? Especially for a 'competing' keeper. Wells could be mad enough to keep his current form if crayton gets more than Zach's 53,000.

First, it's hard to judge a GK based on a few highlight films. But my impression of him was the opposite of he's athletic and 'raw talent'. My impression is that he tends to not come off his line. He appears aggressive though when he does come out. So unlike a lot of raw keepers, he seems to be relatively calm, doesn't get flustered and is decisive. Again, that's only on a few video clips. And frankly, for a 30 year old who's seen some international matches (and African international matches are nothing to sneeze about) and a lot of Euro club practices, he should be the opposite of raw. He should be solid, decent if not good positioning, good organizer. I suspect he's bounced around for so long because he isn't a brilliant GK who will stand on his head to win a match but because he's a good solid veteran. And frankly, if that's what he is, than that's what we need: a reliable guy who organizes, doesn't make silly mistakes or lose us matches.

Also, with 30+ caps, you'd think that DCU will have had seen lots of film of this guy.

No idea what this guy would do. United games going forward everyone of them would be critical to win if we need to grap any trophies.
Red Bulls have broken their hearts last night so they wouldn't recover to win against us. Revs got more confidence so we must show our best.

I think Red Bull New York will come out swinging. Had they beat Barcelona, over confidence would have been a risk, but losing 6-2 will light a fire. Each one of their players is fighting for a contract at this point.

The best thing about this keeper is that it keeps pressure on Wells. Wells knows that the club is going to want to see him in a game soon. Wells needs to make sure that Soehn & Co. have a hard time making the decision.

Slightly OT, but anybody notice that GolTV News showed *video* highlights of the women's US-Norway match last night? Neither FSC nor ESPN showed them, so I'm wondering: is GolTV owned by NBC, or do they just not care?

Bong Mines? Didn't they play the 9:30 Club back in '97? I think Poison opened for them.

I am pretty surprised -- perhaps disappointed is a better word -- that we have to look to the country of watches and army knives for a goalkeeper. If we can produce anything, we can produce guys that can catch a ball. Alas... I guess experience is an important element for United's FO. Crayton certainly brings that.

He has a facebook tribute calling him the "legend of Basel" and he is apparently a character. Singing and dancing in the middle of interviews being commonplace. Get he and Emilio together for a duet. Stat!

Actually, it was the worst possible result (assuming they both beat Japan). If one of them had won, then we could draw our next two games and move forward. Now, assuming that both Nigeria and Netherlands beat Japan, we will have to beat one of them to progress.

Crayton is a very good keeper and a perfect team player! In Basle everybody was very happy with him and he had some really great saves (even international games). Lois Crayton is a very good import. Please give him a kind welcome!

Most of that YouTube interview was in Librerian but it's nice to know Louie Crayton speaks good English. That way he can communicate with Jaime and Jaime can then translate for Peralta.

I don't know whether a tie in Holland v Nigeria helps or hurts the US chances of advancing to the quarterfinals (it can't hurt us that USA is currently in 1st place) but the Dutch may have suffered a few losses in their scoreless draw:

Roy Makaay left the game at halftime with some kind of ankle injury (seriousness still unknown) and Evander Sno was redcarded for fouling a late sub from the Columbus Crew! (Ekpo)

The problem is you can occasionally hear the word "goalie" during coach and player interviews in none other than the DCU and other MLS locker rooms. I don't like the use of "goalie" in a soccer context, either, but in the US the term is ocasionally used in soccer circles. That is not likely to change.

Are you talking about the YouTube interview linked earlier in this thread? Every word Crayton says in that interview is in English. The voiceover, including the translation of his answers, is (Swiss) German.

Portland already has an established supporters group culture (something we would like to see more of) and, if I remember correctly, that is why they are being vouched for by The Barra.
There are also Timbers' Army members who have sat with the Barra in the past when in DC.

If you don't accept the fact that at this point soccer is still the "anti-sport sport" to many people, you're kidding yourself. Case in point - the idiots sitting in front of me at the US - Arg game who were way up in the upper deck behind the goal while the US was attacking the #1 team in the world and still managed to not stand up a single time and grumbled "sit down!" the entire game.

I'm not saying some of us aren't nerds or snobs, but a lot quite obviously are.

that's the thing about nerds and snobs, they rarely realize what the rest of the rest of the world thinks about them.
I would say I am way more nerd than snob when it comes to soccer, but I'd probably be called a snob when it comes to say... urban cycling habits.
Check out BSNYC's blog to catch my drift.
I was just saying that all the hair splitting is awfully nerdy, and if we really need to macho it up by acting like jocks when someone calls us nerds, then I would call that pretty snobby...
Goalie, Goalkeeper, Crazy Mofo, scapegoat, what is it I'm supposed to call the dude between the pipes again?
PORTLAND 2011!

Posted by: Charles Taylor
-----------------------------
how di body? oh, you're on trial in the Hague. how's the family? oh, your son's in jail in miami. how Foday? oh he's dead, i'm sorry couldn't happen to a nicer guy. well hope everything else is well. at least you still have your wealth. oh, all your assets have been frozen. eek, not doing so well are you.

I didn't read all the comments so I'm not sure if this has been mentioned but they should go after Kasey Keller - any reason why they wouldn't? I'm not sure any team would pay him mega bucks.....

Posted by: Fairfax | August 7, 2008 2:10 PM

Kasey can still make 10 times any MLS payday by staying in Europe. Kasey doesn't sell tickets, or jerseys, or any promise of being around for more than a year, so making him a DP doesn't make much sense.

Wells has been better lately, but there's still lots of room for improvement (especially since Saturday was the first time in a month that it wasn't very easy to just march straight up the middle against us). We know Crayton will get his opportunity to be first-choice...hopefully he takes it, or Wells steps up his game to keep his spot.

As for speculation about our connection to Crayton, try this on for size: We played Basel a few years back in the preseason, and caught a beating (4-0 or 4-1, if memory serves). I'm guessing Kasper made some contacts on the day. That seems more reasonable to me than Doe showing up and saying "Hey, I know a guy..."

Liberia is the only other country in the world besides the U.S. with their capital named after an US President (Monrovia). I personally (but I am a bit of a history fanatic) think that the historical US - Liberia connections alone are worth enough to give this guy a chance.